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The Kaula Tantra Yoga System is based on the āyurvedic concept of prāṇa (from the Sanskrit root prā, “to fill”), comparable to chi in Chinese five-element medicine, which represents the life energy or life essence. The aim of this yoga practice is to bring one’s prāṇa or chi into personal balance or harmony. 

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Prāṇa or chi flows through the nāḍīs (from the Sanskrit root nad, “to flow”), which are subtle channels that facilitate the circulation of the life energy or life force. As your life energy comes into balance through the practice of this yoga system, your mind “let’s go” of recurring thoughts, and you immerse yourself in deep meditation. In this homeostasis, your physical, mental and spiritual aspects can begin to unfold.

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The practice of the Kaula Tantra Yoga System has similarities to the practice of a mantra, where your mind is engaged with the mantra and does not jump from one thought to the next (the so-called “monkey-mind”). To illustrate this concept, consider the analogy of a caparisoned elephant being led through a market by his mahout. Instead, of being distracted by various objects like an apple and a banana here and there waving its trunk around everywhere, the elephant is given a bamboo stick to carry by its minder, allowing it to walk calmly and with purpose, not being distracted, as it has something to hold on to (see Eknath Easwaran, The Mind and the Elephant Trunk). Similarly, the Kaula Tantra Yoga System helps you focus your mind and cultivate inner peace, leading to a more balanced and harmonious life.

By regularly practicing the Kaula system, one can transcend the linear, judgmental mind or conscious mind and experience a deeper connection to one’s self. This has the overall effect of eradicating past negative karma. You can then also learn to translate this state of every day relaxation in yoga practice in to your everyday living and life becomes much more enjoyable when you can express from your non-linear or wholesome, Absolute and True Self. This is epitomised by śavāsana or corpse pose, where the meditative awareness is dispersed to the whole body. Śavāsana is about detaching from the bodily experience of a physical self to connect with the real self. This is why we say “relax” over and over again in our āsana system, because we are culturing the wholesome self. We are trying to be the no-mind / Zen or zero state. Remember, you are not your body or your mind but your Pure Consciousness!

This immersion in the zero state leads to a deeply experienced state of inner peace that forms the basis for experiencing the Divine within. Without this deeply experienced no-mind state, discussion of Kaula philosophy is only theoretical and integration is impossible. The daily āsana system is thus a necessary precursor to integrating the Kaula teachings of the “Divine as everything.” You must experience yourself as the Blissful Divine to truly know this system.